Export credits are a mechanism for governments to encourage domestic companies to invest abroad, effectively offering free insurance against default.

France’s COFACE agency has guaranteed more than US$2.5 billion of coal projects over the period 2007-14.

In ending that support, the French government acknowledged it ran counter to global efforts to tackle climate change, which will involve phasing out fossil fuels.

The country has invested significant political capital in making the Paris summit, or COP21, a success.

“We must be exemplary in every way,” Hollande said from the Elysee palace in Paris, where he spoke alongside business leaders and senior politicians to launch France’s pre-summit programme, the FT reported.

Paris will host 40,000 delegates at a two-week December summit where almost 200 nations are expected to sign a global climate pact.

NGOs welcomed the announcement, but worried about the carbon capture and storage proviso. The technology, to neutralise the greenhouse gas emissions from coal power generation, is only in place in a few places worldwide.

“Manuel Valls gave no indication of what he means by carbon capture and storage technology,” said Lucie Pinson of Friends of the Earth in comments reported by EurActiv. “He also failed to mention which countries may be excluded.”

The world’s wealthiest economies continue to pump billions of dollars of public finance into coal assets abroad in contradiction to their drive to lower national carbon emissions.

The OECD gave almost half of the $73 billion approved between 2007-14 with Japan, Germany and Korea the worst offenders, according to a report by Oil Change International.

The European Union will determine its position at a 16 September meeting, a day before OECD holds a consultation on export credit agencies’ coal subsidies.